Banking the Billionaire (Bad Boy Billionaires Book 2) (16 page)

“I’m on the couch. Bring the food in here, baby!” I yelled over my shoulder, adding my own endearment as a counterpart to his. If he wanted to crawl up my ass, I could do the same to him. I was Cassie fucking Phillips. I could handle whatever he threw my way.

Well, maybe not literal anal fisting
.
I don’t think I could handle that
. His hands were big.

He strode into the living room with two bags of Chinese takeout in hand and stopped dead in his tracks when he found me on his sofa.

“Hi,” I greeted with a sugary smile as I took an equally sugary bite of his favorite cereal. “Sorry,” I continued over a mouthful, “I got too hungry waiting for you to get back.”

His brown eyes looked me over, and once they saw the shoe-covered foot resting on his pristine leather couch, I swore I saw his jaw tick a few times in response, but somehow, he managed to force his face into an annoyingly neutral expression.

I swallowed the bite and asked, “What’d ya get?”

“I hope you like Chinese. I would’ve gotten your favorite food, but I don’t know it.” He flashed a smirk in my direction as he set the bags on the coffee table and sat down beside me. “But I guess that’s how all serious, live-in relationships start out, right? Not knowing anything about each other. Seems normal to me,” he said with a shrug as he pulled cartons from the bag.

God, he was such a smartass, and I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed that aspect of his personality endlessly.

“Well, mystery is what makes a good relationship.” I set my serving bowl onto the table and started opening up the cartons. “At least I’ve heard that somewhere…like
Cosmo
or Georgie? I mean, look at them. They were catfishing each other, and it worked out pretty damn good.”

He chuckled at that. “Yeah, I’d say it worked out well for both of them.”

“Can I have the orange chicken, sweetie pie?” I asked, holding up the carton in his direction.

“Anything for you,
honeybunch
,” he said, flashing a wink. He grabbed the remote from my lap and turned on
SportsCenter
. As the sportscaster rolled through the Top Ten Highlights, Thatch leaned back on the couch and started to dig into a container of Kung Pao Chicken.

I made myself even more comfortable, stretching my legs out and placing my shoe-clad feet in his lap, but to my disappointment, he briefly glanced down and then his eyes went back to the TV as he continued eating his food. And even though I had eaten the equivalent of half a box of cereal, I couldn’t resist gorging on Chinese while we sat in silence for a while, just eating and watching
SportsCenter
. It was oddly comforting.

I didn’t realize he had finished his food until he was busy untying my laces and gently removing my shoes and socks. Next thing I knew, his big hands were massaging the soles of my feet while his gaze stayed fixated on the television.

The whole scene felt way too instinctive on his part. I honestly didn’t know if he even realized he was doing it, and that was probably why I found myself asking, “Have you ever had a roommate before?”

“Kline and I were roommates in college,” he answered without looking in my direction.

I removed my foot from his grip and tapped his thigh, urging his attention.

He looked at me, tilting his head in slight confusion.

“I meant roommate of the female persuasion.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve never lived with a woman.”

Interesting.
Maybe he had just had a lot of girlfriends? Because, yeah, his hands were real fucking good at giving massages.

“When was your last girlfriend?”

“It’s been a while,” he answered cryptically.

“A while? Like a few years?”

“I haven’t had a girlfriend since high school.”

“High school?”
I questioned in shock.

He nodded. “Like I said, it’s been a while.”

“Wow. That’s a really long time.”

He turned his body toward mine while he kept my feet firmly in his lap and his hands kept massaging all of the most perfect spots. I had to fight the urge to moan when he started using his thumbs on my heels.

“What about you? Have you ever lived with a guy before?” he asked, turning the tables on me.

“No.”

“When was your last relationship?”

“Um…
a while ago.”
Or never.

He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “A while? Like a few months or a few years?”

“What constitutes a relationship, exactly?”

Thatch laughed. “I’d say it would be the last time you considered someone your boyfriend.”

“Then I guess I’d have to say a while, meaning never.”

His brow scrunched into a firm line. “You’ve never had a boyfriend?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “I’ve dated, but never long enough to hit the boyfriend-girlfriend milestone.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Not really.” I shrugged. “I’ve just never found anyone who kept my interest longer than three or four dates. I’m aware that makes me sound like I’m scared of commitment, but in reality, I just don’t like wasting time. And not just my time—
anyone’s
time. If I’m not feeling it or shit feels forced, then it’s better to end it than let something continue when I know it’s not going to work out in the end.”

Thatch nodded in agreement. “I respect that.”

“Really?” I asked and squinted a little in surprise. Not that I had ever made a point to care what other people thought about my life choices, but Thatch’s neutral reaction was the opposite of pretty much
everyone
. Hell, even my mother—who for most of her life had encouraged me to do what made me happy—had recently started bombarding me with questions about whether or not I’d ever settle down. Although, I had a feeling that concern was more focused on the second female biological clock, the one people forgot to mention, than anything else:
Grandchildren
.

“Yes, Cass.” He tapped my foot and offered a small smile. “I definitely respect the fact that you’re open and honest and don’t beat around the fucking bush when it comes to relationships. I wish more women had that mind-set. Most would probably find that waiting on the right man is better than settling with some dipshit who doesn’t deserve them. And it’s more respectful to the other party than pretending to be all in when you’re not.”

For some reason, the softness in his coffee-colored eyes had me giving him more insight into my life and lack of relationship history. “In college, I never had a boyfriend because I didn’t want a boyfriend. I was one of those rare girls who enjoyed being single and just doing my own thing. And once I graduated and started my career, I was traveling all the time in the beginning. Four months would go by, and I’d maybe be in New York for a week or two, tops. That lifestyle never really made a relationship possible.”

“Do you still travel that much?”

“
Fuck
no. But that’s only because all of that traveling paid off. I paved my own path and created a good reputation for myself.”

“A reputation that generally revolves around taking pics of half-naked men?” he asked in a teasing tone.

“What can I say? I have an eye for good-looking men, muscles, and sometimes, a nice,
thick
bulge in a pair of Calvin Klein’s,” I declared with a wink.

I expected him to retort with something about
his
thick bulge, but he merely laughed and continued to massage my feet, working those big hands up to my calves.

Hmmm…maybe Thatcher Kelly could be serious every once in a while?

I glanced at the clock on the cable box and saw it was nearly ten o’clock. “Well, roomie, I better hit the hay. I have to be out the door before dawn for a shoot in the Hamptons.”

He removed my feet from his lap and stood, holding out a hand to help pull me off the couch.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I got to my feet in front of him. My eyes scrutinized his, waiting for him to raise the white flag and tell me to go home—which would mean the ultimate prankster would officially be dethroned from his royal throne of pranking and I would walk away victorious.

Say it! Say it! Say it!
I chanted in my head.

“I’m going to bed too.”

Huh?

“We’re both going to bed? Right now? In
your
bed?”

“I think you can start calling it
our
bed now, baby,”
he said with a wink as he walked toward the hall.

I followed his lead into his bedroom, until we were both standing in front of the his and hers sinks in his master bathroom. Thatch seemed to be completely at ease, brushing his teeth, peeing—
in front of me
—and then, washing his hands. A few minutes later, he was cozied up in bed while I remained in the bathroom, just staring at my toothbrush, which he had kindly set in my hand.

“If you forgot toothpaste, feel free to borrow mine,” he called from the bed.

“Uh…thanks,” I muttered.

As I brushed my teeth and stared at my reflection in the mirror, I started to wonder what tricks Thatch had up his sleeve. I had a feeling he had a plan in place, and no way in hell was I going to let him one-up me without already having some plans of my own.

I crawled into bed beside him, fluffing the pillows and patting the plush white comforter around my body. “Good night,” I said into the dark room.

“Night, Cass,” he responded, and I swore I could hear a smirk in his voice.

And because I truly loved fucking with him, I finished the “good nights” off by reaching under the covers, grabbing his package, and whispering, “Good night, Supercock.”

He chuckled softly a few times, and to my surprise, Thatch’s big hands didn’t even try to cop a feel of my tits.

That’s not disappointment you’re feeling,
I told myself as a weird hollowness took shape in my belly.
Really.

Within a few minutes, I could hear his breaths easing in and out at a slow and steady pace.

As I lay awake beside the sleeping giant, his soft breaths lulling me toward sleep of my own, I tried to make sense of his act of utter contentment.

The only explanation I could find was that the prankster had already planned his next move.

Game on, motherfucker.

“A
week,” I said into the webcam, rubbing at the tight skin of my forehead.

“What?” Kline asked. I wanted to poke out his overly amused blue eyes.

“She’s been living with me for a fucking week, dude.”

Boisterous laughter filled my ears, and I flipped him the bird since I knew he could see it. Well, he’d be able to see it when his head came forward again after his all-out humor-seizure, anyway.

“So she’s there a week. What’s the big deal?” he asked as he shuffled some stupid papers from one side of his desk to the other. His voice had finally evened, but a smile still swallowed his face from ear to ear.

“The big deal is that I made her an omelet this morning because she told me to, and we haven’t had any more sex. That office blow job is the last activity my dick saw. Taking orders and not being rewarded? I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“Have you tried to have sex with her?”

Well, I mean… Not really. I’d expected it would just happen. I chose not to tell Kline that, and he pretty obviously took it to mean the opposite.

“Right. I forgot who I was talking to.”

Yeah, yeah. I had the friend vote for
Most Likely to Become a Prostitute
wrapped up.

“So ask her to leave,” he said seriously, looking straight into the camera and raising an eyebrow in challenge.

This was a test, and I was definitely going to fail. Or pass, depending on what he wanted from me.
Fuck
.

I didn’t
want
her to leave. She was entertaining and funny and so goddamn hot my retinas burned just thinking about her. But the whole “look but don’t touch” thing was really starting to wear out my stamina, and not in the good way. Plus, I still couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on. I knew she was pranking me.
I knew it.
But it didn’t even remotely feel like it.

I also didn’t really want to give Kline the inch he was so desperately stretching for.

I fought the natural change in my features to keep my expression neutral. “And give in first? No fucking way.”